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More than 800 people died while homeless in Alameda County over a three-year period spanning 2018 to 2020, county officials said Wednesday in their first-ever homeless mortality report.
Deaths rose rapidly over the period. In 2020, 368 homeless people died, up from 195 in 2018, a nearly two-fold increase.
Of the 809 total deaths from 2018 to 2020, more than 450 homeless people died in Oakland, the report says. On average over the three-year period, people experiencing homelessness died 23 years sooner than the general population.
“We believe no one should die alone or unknown in homelessness,” said Colleen Chawla, director of the county’s Health Care Services Agency, which oversaw production of the report.
“A responsible and just community must work to be closely aware of the deaths of all its members and strive to learn meaningful ways to improve program planning and shape policy,” Chawla said.
Black people made up 41%, or 331, of the total deaths, while they make up 19% of the general population in the county.
In total, 76% of the people who died were men, and 66% of deaths were outside of a medical setting, such as on the street or sidewalk, in a park or in a vehicle, shelter, encampment, motel or other location.
More than 140 people died on the street or sidewalk.
Kerry Abbott, director of HCSA’s Office of Homeless Care and Coordination, which is part of the effort to end homelessness in the county, called the report “sobering.”
She said it will help inform the work her office does “to reduce premature deaths among unhoused residents.”
Abbott said the tally of the county’s homeless population, which was done again in February of this year, will also inform her office’s work.
The number of homeless deaths in Alameda County for 2021 was unavailable, said Noemy Mena-Miles, a spokesperson for the county’s Health Care Services Agency.
It’s mathematically impossible for a working class (median wage) worker to afford even a basic home in the Bay Area. Homes in east side san jose are $1 million now. Young upcoming families can’t even afford a down payment, let alone the mortgages, so they’re leaving in huge numbers; many homeowner boomers have no issue selling their homes to investment banks or rich internationals.
Meanwhile we have an opiate crisis and a worsening mental health issues.
We keep increasing military expenditures yet have tens of millions of uninsured americans without healthcare. We have the highest state taxes in the country yet our infrastructure is horrible.
The war on drugs perpetuates the homeless issue, instead of focusing on treatment/education/rehab we just send people to prison and they come out with criminal records.
Previous generations got to buy homes in California for $250k and college was $3k a semester.
The rents here are skyrocketing. If you can’t afford a home, what if you can’t even afford the rent (which are oftens thousands a month)?
As long as homes, gasoline, degrees, and rent continue to remain unaffordable this will only get worse. And instead of actually talking about why we’re the only OECD nation with expensive university tuition and without basic healthcare for all nothing will resolve. NO money for healthcare, no money for affordable college…yet unlimited money for corporate bailouts and military.
The worst part is the lack of common sense. California talks about saving the planet/environment while their cities are covered in homeless, needles, feces, and literal garbage. Big tech execs and politicians living in multi million dollar homes while working class people can barely afford a car or home anymore (yet they virtue signal their ukranian/blm/trans flags). No republican or democrat is doing a thing to help us.
“All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us” – Michael Jackson
Did Alameda County Coroner complete autopsies on these deaths? What is the official cause of these deaths? Do homeless people come from broken homes? Do homeless people have loving parents and family?
Homelessness is a social phenomenon, just as marriage is a social phenomenon, just as racism, religion, etc., are social phenomenon.
Homeless people are homeless because the want to be homeless. With all the religious organizations available, the government agencies, all wanting to help, are everywhere. refugees, legal immigrants, arrive in this country every day and are helped, get into homes, fine work, become productive members of the communities they arrive in.
Homelessness is a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing norm. Homelessness is a protest. Homeless people have dropped out, turned on, refuse to work, have no self-esteem: Lack cohesion, strength.
Self-esteem: An individual’s subjective condition, evaluation of their own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith Mackie defined self-esteem by saying, “the self-concept is what we think about the self. Self-esteem is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it”.
Homeless encampments start fires that burn down residential and commercial properties, burning people alive in the process. Homeless people trash their encampments and the surrounding areas, rat infestations thrive in these encampments. This lifestyle is what they have chosen, without making the necessary step towards help, they should expect to, and they will perish in their selected filth.
“Homeless people are homeless because the want to be homeless.”
Not always true.
What happens when homes are 1 million and rents are thousands a month?
What happens if you come out with a criminal record for drugs making it harder to get established?
How about mental illness? A large % of homeless have a mental issue and USA has no healthcare for all.
How about all the legal opiates/medications substances that get americans addicted? Drugs such as oxycontin and fentanyl are corporate pharmaceuticals and kill tens of thousands of americans per year.
@Michael Austin- did you just blame homelessness on divorce? Do you have a study to back that up?
baklau:
Those organizations and agencies I mentioned provide physical and mental health services along with housing and other amenities.
As I pointed out, refugees and legal immigrants have a roof over their head same day they arrive.
Jennifer P:
No. I did not blame homelessness on divorce.
There’s plenty of working people who can’t afford rent working. Homes are 1 million and rents are thousands. It’s basic math. That’s why there’s people sleeping in their cars (which are also very expensive now). Even getting into an apartment now can be difficult (credit scores, pre-paying 1st months rent).
To reiterate, not everyone who is homeless wants to be. The homeless shelters are already overflowed and rents/mortgages keep going up.
“Black people made up 41%, or 331, of the total deaths, while they make up 19% of the general population in the county.”
^Michael Austin must think African Americans in California want to be homeless and die in the streets.
One problem Michael Schellnberger explains in his book is the misrepresentation of the term “homeless”. This is used as a catch-all phrase by some intentionally and unintentionally.
Two main groups:
working homeless in cars and shelters
Mentally ill open-air drug encampments
These two groups need completely different plans and strategies to get back into mainstream “society”, if that’s what they want.
But do all homeless “deserve” free housing in one of the most expensive areas in the world?
Hard to say yes IMO when you’re grouping them all together which some do intentionally.